On Thursday 1 July, 2021, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of Sussex, and members of the Spencer family gathered in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace to unveil a statue in honour of the late Princess of Wales. Thursday would have been her 60th birthday, and the two brothers commissioned artist Ian Rank-Broadley in 2017 to create the statue.
Embed from Getty ImagesBoth brothers unveiled the statue. In a short, joint statement that they released, they said “our hope is that this statue will be seen forever as a symbol of her life and her legacy.”
It is a bronze statue, and was created in the “lost-wax” process by the Castle Fine Arts Foundry. This creates a bluish-greenish patina on the bronze. It is 1.25x life size, and is a hollow-cast structure.
The statue depicts Diana in a casual outfit, a buttoned down shirt with rolled up sleeves and a knee length skirt. There is a young boy on her left side in shorts and a zip-up sweatshirt, and a girl on her right side in a sundress. She is resting her hands on each of their shoulders. A second boy is walking up behind her. The children are meant to represent the significant and lasting impact of the Princess’s work. Diana is shown at the age she was when she died in 1997.
Below the statue, there is a plinth with the date of the unveiling and her name. There is a paving stone in front of the statue with the following portion of the poem, The Measure of A Man:
“These are the units to measure the worth
Of this woman as a woman regardless of birth.
Not what was her station? But had she a heart?
How did she play her God-given part?”
Ian Rank-Broadley has had several royal commissions throughout his career. He has designed the portrait of The Queen that appears on the obverse of British coins and many Commonwealth coins, since 1998. He also created a joint portrait of The Queen and Prince Philip that appeared on a coin in 2007 celebrating their sixtieth wedding anniversary, and a bronze plaque of Her Majesty in her Garter robes at the Supreme Court.
